The ministry of home affairs (MHA) has asked the department of telecommunication (DoT) to take penal action against popular micro-blogging site Twitter and other similar networking sites that were not cooperating in the investigation into the spread of inflammatory contents on Assam violence on the web, leading to mass exodus of people from the North-East region from other parts of the country.

MHA sources said Twitter and some other sites refused to take off offensive posts despite the government order. As many as 28 web pages, mostly on Twitter, would be acted upon, sources said.

Till Wednesday morning, a total of 310 web pages had been identified which the government wants blocked, sources said. Of these, 93 were still not being blocked, 65 were identified and the process to block them was on, 10 could not be blocked because of technical difficulties and the MHA had asked the DoT to block 28 objectionable pages found on Twitter, sources said.

Twitter had not responded to the government request till Tuesday afternoon. According to MHA sources, the inflammatory contents had originated in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Social networking site Facebook and search engine giant Google, which hosts video-sharing website YouTube, had earlier responded to the MHA request urging India to seek the US help under provisions of law. These companies said Indian should take the bilateral route as they were governed by the American laws.